Make Time for the Vine!

Am I leading you to drink?

I could be!

As I reached for the door of a winebar

a few weeks ago,

I realized that the brass handle

was wrought in the style of a vine stem, with leaves and fruits forming its juncture with the door. Sadly I didn’t have my camera with me but the effect, as well as being destinationally appropriate, was vaguely Art Nouveau.

The power of the vine!

Productive of food, significantly drunk, used for furniture, a literary symbol down the ages in parables, sung about songs etc,

the vine also provides strong visual images:

 

here on the base of an oriel window

on the coving of a client’s ceiling

even on a friend’s designer scarf.

Yes, once you get your eye in, the vine is everywhere.

Vines can of course also be potent garden design tools, aside that is from their obvious  productive appeal.

You can use them for shade on pergolas, let them scramble through trees, frame doorways with them, clothe walls with them.

Essentially decorate with them:

Here at Milton Lodge the purple vine, Vitis vinifera ‘Purpurea’ makes climbing a stair a delight

One of the common wine producing forms makes  a tangle of luxuriance in a small city garden

The word ‘tangle’ might sound a word of warning. How many climbers have we known which have gone bananas?

Well of course that is where pruning comes in.

And now is the time to do it. You could in truth have done it in December. I believe Dan Pearson, who I respect for his horticultural skill as much as his great design and writing abilities, says December. I am usually later than that. But by now it is beginning to be on my conscience. Once the sap begins to rise they can bleed profusely, which saps their strength and is worrying for the poor old gardener.

So the last few days I have been popping out when I wanted a break from drawing and the inevitable laptop to snip and chop.

Pruning vines is really too simple for words.

It is clean, easy work, which satisfies in its restoration of order.

Here a rafter top profusion of Vitis cognettiae:

becomes:

Which is tidier but still is a sculptural delight.

Cut back to evident nodes, growth points, buds- in- waiting call them what you will. There is a pleasing logic and rigour about it.

The framework you leave is your choice. It may be a fan, a rod and laterals or even just a rod. Here a messy smaller vine:

becomes:
Seems tough?

‘Make the vine poor and it will make you rich’ is the old adage!

R

Robert Webber

The Hegarty Webber partnership

Tags: climbers, Dan pearson, garden design, make the vine poor and it will make you rich, Milton Lodge, pruning, vine, Vitis cognettiae, Vitis vinifera 'Purpurea'

Category: Design Bites, Garden Planning, General Gardening Stuff, Now YOU Have A Go!, The Planty Stuff